Accounting history hobbies -- Scripophily;Scripophily

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Dale Flesher displays a rare certificate
ACCOUNTING HISTORY
HOBBIES - SCRIPOPHIIY
8 The Accounting Historians Notebook, Spring, 1985
by
DALE L. FLESHER
University of Mississippi
(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the fourth in
a series of articles on accounting history
hobbies. The editor welcomes manuscripts
pertaining to other hobbies of interest to
accounting historians.)
Scripophily is the hobby of studying
and collecting old stocks and bonds. It is
the hobby not only of this author, but one
shared with such notables as Dr. Lee D.
Parker of Monash University (who is a
trustee of the Academy of Accounting
Historians) and Boris Bittker, the famed
Yale University tax professor and author.
I began my collection about fifteen
years ago when I saw an advertisement in
the Wall Street Journal offering ten
antique cancelled stock certificates for only
two dollars. Since I was a university
accounting professor (and still am), I was
aware of how much difficulty my students
were having with the accounting problems
of common stock. Not only had my
students never seen a stock certificate, they
could not tell the difference between
common stock and livestock (like on a
farm). Therefore, I decided to invest two
dollars and obtain ten certificates to use
as examples in my accounting classes.
As the old saying goes, "the rest is
history." I became so enamored with the
beauty and history of the documents that
I became an avid collector. I discovered
that old certificates were really a form of
limited edition, numbered art prints since
they were engraved in intricate detail in
order to prevent counterfeiting. They were
numbered for purposes of corporate record
keeping. Other advantages of old